John was born in Paremata on 14th March 1897 the eldest son of Mariana Marino and Elizabetta (Elizabeth) Caterina

Vella. John was named Giovanni Martino Mariano Vella but the name was anglicised to John, in the Vella family he was known as Jack.

Jack was raised in Station Street, Paremata with his older sister Metty and younger sister Annie (Antonia Elizabeth Maria) and younger brother Mariano Francisco (Marino Jnr). Jack went to Pauatahanui School from age five but in 1904 transferred to the newly opened Plimmerton School.

Vella family c1905 - 1906

Andrew

Metty

Mariano Jnr

Elizabeth

William

Mariano Snr

Annie

Mary (died in 1907)

Jack

In 1909 Mariano and Elizabeth returned for a holiday to Lussin, a small island off the Dalmatian Coast. It is possible the other three children, Jack (12), Annie (10), Mariano (8) also went.

The family returned to New Zealand in 1915 and settled in Plimmerton.

In 1917, when he was 20, Jack was selected in the compulsory military ballot, his military papers indicate that he was working as a joiner in Wellington but living with his parents in Plimmerton. Both Mariano and Elizabeth are listed as

being born in Austria although Mariano had been naturalised in 1896. Jack also listed that he was serving his military training in D (Wellington) Battery and that he would like to be enlisted in the New Zealand Artillery. Medically graded

as ' A Fit' Jack entered camp as 72597 Private John Martino Mariano Vella, 38th Reinforcements on the 6th February

1918.

There is no reason listed but on 10th April 1918 he was placed on ‘leave in lieu of discharge’[i]. It is possible that his parents birth places were a factor and even though he was born in Paremata a note placed on his file in 1919 has one word ‘Alien’.[ii]

Jack returned to live at Plimmerton but in November 1918 the Vella family was struck by the flu epidemic as his sister remembered[iii]

‘The whole family got sick during the influenza epidemic, we lost my brother Jack in the epidemic.

Mother had us all in bed, except herself. She managed to keep going and then my brother was so

ill we took him to the emergency hospital in the Anglican Church across the road. It was a shocking

thing. It took both young and elderly people.’

On the 20th November 1918 the Evening Post carried a report how Plimmerton was coping with the epidermic.

Of the three Europeans reported very seriously ill, on the 20th

November 1918 Mr Donald Robertson died. Mr Robertson was 44

and had operated a store from 1900 – 1914 in Plimmerton and at

one stage was the Post Master. There was a double tragedy as his

brother-in-law was killed in a motor accident on Paekakariki Hill Road